What an early start today. Up at 4am, out of the hotel by 5 and on a flight to Pakse by 6:30. I slept on the plane as much as I could and of course, someone managed to get an embarrassing photo of it. Once we landed, the bus and our bikes were waiting for us. It was a short trip on the bus to downtown Pakse where we could get into our cycling gear and start our 40km ride for the day. Actually, it turned out to be more like 60km, but more about that in a minute. Unlike the weather in Nonghet, which was mostly cold and raining, the weather here is stinking hot. We mounted our bikes and were off.
The terrain here is very different to Nonghet as well. In Pakse it is very flat whereas Nonghet, being mountainous, is very hilly. I welcomed the change as I prefer to be hot than wet and cold, not to mention that I'm also not a fan of hills, I'd much rather go fast. As is turning out to be a bit of a theme of this trip, the day was not without its dramas. As we set off, Tanya was having problems with the gear changes on her bike so she had to stop to have it looked at. This of course meant she was significantly further behind the rest of the group. She stayed there with Kristen as she always stays at the back of the last person in our group. Further along, Rachel had a problem with her chain I believe so she also stopped to have it fixed and this put her further behind as well. For those of us that were further along, being led by Tong, our guide, we made a left hand turn at a fairly busy intersection on the way to Wat Phu, a pre-Angkorian temple that is one of the most important Khmer sites in Laos. Once the others that were further back caught up they missed the turn off and kept riding in the wrong direction. After a short time, it seems that Tanya and Kristan stopped along with the support vehicle, but by this stage, Rachel was already much further along in the wrong direction. There are several issues as to why they were able to miss the turn off, but the principle one in my mind is that the driver of the support vehicle that was with them didn't even know the way and hence he didn't know they had to turn at that intersection. Anyway, a smaller group of us travelling in the right direction had kept cycling towards Wat Phu. In the meantime, the remainder of the group had stayed behind to wait for Kristen, Tanya nad Rachel. Eventually, they worked out that they made a wrong turn and they had Kristen and Tanya on the bus, but Rachel was still missing. After a lengthy search in the support vehicles, Rachel was found close to the Thailand border; she'd just kept cycling. Meanwhile, the group of us that kept going were told to stop with about 10km to go. After a lengthy wait, we were told to cycle back. We met up with the rest of our group that was going the right way and were told the story I've just outlined above. Given everyone was OK and accounted for, and Kristen and Tanya were on the bus with Rachel on the way, we made the decision to go to Wat Phu and have Rachel meet us there.
Wat Phu is a very interesting place. It is effectively ruins of a temple (or a few temples really) that were around a long time ago. The temple used to be a Hindu temple, but is now a Buddhist one. The ruins have incredible artwork carved into the stone all around the ruins. The main temple is the one at the top of some very old, very uneven stairs which nearly killed me to get up after the 50km ride to get there. It is worth the climb though as the scenery is spectacular and there are some stone carvings that are very well crafted. We spent some time there before heading back down though tretcherous stairs and getting back on our bikes. We cycled another 10km roughly to where the boats were waiting to take us across the Mekong river to where we would spend the night; La Folie Lodge. This place is situated on an island in the middle of the Mekong. It's quite a nice restaurant and we spend some time just winding down in the pool before dinner. Prior to crossing over to the island, one of our people realised that her bag was not on the boat and that it was on the bus going back to Pakse I presume. We had a quite call to the driver to come back with it before we crossed. It was a touch and go moment there for a while because we weren't sure it would actually be on the bus, but thankfully it was.
All up, not a bad day considering how horribly it could have worked out. We also managed to cycle about 60km on a day that should only have been 40km. That's good because we had some riding to make up since we had a couple of very wet days. Tomorrow will be our biggest ride day. 90km of riding and also our last full day in Laos. We are going to the 4000 islands tomorrow making our way towards Cambodia. Two pictures today. The first is the main temple at Wat Phu after the crazy stair climb and the other is the boats that we crossed the river on to get to Don Daeng where the hotel is.
The terrain here is very different to Nonghet as well. In Pakse it is very flat whereas Nonghet, being mountainous, is very hilly. I welcomed the change as I prefer to be hot than wet and cold, not to mention that I'm also not a fan of hills, I'd much rather go fast. As is turning out to be a bit of a theme of this trip, the day was not without its dramas. As we set off, Tanya was having problems with the gear changes on her bike so she had to stop to have it looked at. This of course meant she was significantly further behind the rest of the group. She stayed there with Kristen as she always stays at the back of the last person in our group. Further along, Rachel had a problem with her chain I believe so she also stopped to have it fixed and this put her further behind as well. For those of us that were further along, being led by Tong, our guide, we made a left hand turn at a fairly busy intersection on the way to Wat Phu, a pre-Angkorian temple that is one of the most important Khmer sites in Laos. Once the others that were further back caught up they missed the turn off and kept riding in the wrong direction. After a short time, it seems that Tanya and Kristan stopped along with the support vehicle, but by this stage, Rachel was already much further along in the wrong direction. There are several issues as to why they were able to miss the turn off, but the principle one in my mind is that the driver of the support vehicle that was with them didn't even know the way and hence he didn't know they had to turn at that intersection. Anyway, a smaller group of us travelling in the right direction had kept cycling towards Wat Phu. In the meantime, the remainder of the group had stayed behind to wait for Kristen, Tanya nad Rachel. Eventually, they worked out that they made a wrong turn and they had Kristen and Tanya on the bus, but Rachel was still missing. After a lengthy search in the support vehicles, Rachel was found close to the Thailand border; she'd just kept cycling. Meanwhile, the group of us that kept going were told to stop with about 10km to go. After a lengthy wait, we were told to cycle back. We met up with the rest of our group that was going the right way and were told the story I've just outlined above. Given everyone was OK and accounted for, and Kristen and Tanya were on the bus with Rachel on the way, we made the decision to go to Wat Phu and have Rachel meet us there.
Wat Phu is a very interesting place. It is effectively ruins of a temple (or a few temples really) that were around a long time ago. The temple used to be a Hindu temple, but is now a Buddhist one. The ruins have incredible artwork carved into the stone all around the ruins. The main temple is the one at the top of some very old, very uneven stairs which nearly killed me to get up after the 50km ride to get there. It is worth the climb though as the scenery is spectacular and there are some stone carvings that are very well crafted. We spent some time there before heading back down though tretcherous stairs and getting back on our bikes. We cycled another 10km roughly to where the boats were waiting to take us across the Mekong river to where we would spend the night; La Folie Lodge. This place is situated on an island in the middle of the Mekong. It's quite a nice restaurant and we spend some time just winding down in the pool before dinner. Prior to crossing over to the island, one of our people realised that her bag was not on the boat and that it was on the bus going back to Pakse I presume. We had a quite call to the driver to come back with it before we crossed. It was a touch and go moment there for a while because we weren't sure it would actually be on the bus, but thankfully it was.
All up, not a bad day considering how horribly it could have worked out. We also managed to cycle about 60km on a day that should only have been 40km. That's good because we had some riding to make up since we had a couple of very wet days. Tomorrow will be our biggest ride day. 90km of riding and also our last full day in Laos. We are going to the 4000 islands tomorrow making our way towards Cambodia. Two pictures today. The first is the main temple at Wat Phu after the crazy stair climb and the other is the boats that we crossed the river on to get to Don Daeng where the hotel is.
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